


Call upon the Reaper man (or woman)

by laminated_newspaper



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Grim Reaper - Freeform, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laminated_newspaper/pseuds/laminated_newspaper
Summary: “Call upon the reaper man, call him when you die. He’ll bring you gifts to ease your pain, he’ll kiss you when you cry. Call upon the reaper man and don’t you fret or fear. The reaper man is kindly and he’ll hold you oh so near. The reaper man is nimble, with feet of flax and gold. He’ll help you die my child, be you young or old.”





	1. first (ocean and differences)

**Author's Note:**

> I realize I made it sound a lot like I plan on making Kaz the Grim Reaper, but he's actually not. It's Inej, Kaz is just a mortal loser who gets a crush on the grim reaper. In this house we love and respect Inej.

“Call upon the reaper man, call him when you die. He’ll bring you gifts to ease your pain, he’ll kiss you when you cry. Call upon the reaper man and don’t you fret or fear. The reaper man is kindly and he’ll hold you oh so near. The reaper man is nimble, with feet of flax and gold. He’ll help you die my child, be you young or old.” 

Inej had heard the song sung from all sorts of people. The old and young, peaceful and violent, good and evil. Kaz Rietveld was no exception to any she had visited before. Fire pox had been slowly choking the life out of Ketterdam for the past three months, and even had it not festered in the city like a menacing fog, the cold and the crime killed hundreds of little boys like Kaz Rietveld every single year. No, Kaz was not special in any way.  
On the night that Inej met him, Kaz was floating in the ocean with about sixty other dead men women and children. What was different about Kaz was that he sang the song, Her song.  
“Call upon the reaper man, call him when you die. He’ll bring you gifts to ease your pain, he’ll kiss you when you cry. Call upon the reaper man and don’t you fret or fear. The reaper man is kindly and he’ll hold you oh so near. The reaper man is nimble, with feet of flax and gold. He’ll help you die my child, be you young or old.”  
She was sometimes perplexed by the song, when she had enough time for thinking. It had been written hundreds of years ago by a young girl, high up in the Rakvan mountains clutching to bodies of her fellow Grisha. Her unit had been cornered by a opposing unit of Druskelle and had become trapped in a mountain cave. In that cold, dark cave with no exits she had tried to reassure her younger comrades, with hugs, with tears, and finally with the comfort that if they sung the song it would make them feel better. She had died that day, along with seventeen of her comrades, but three Grisha survived and passed on the song to their children. How strange that the woman who made the song was never able to see how her short life created a long and anonymous legacy.  
Inej certainly was the reaper, or something like it, but she wasn’t ever a man. The reaper before her was, and if the mortals chose to sing the song that way, who was she to deny the comfort of the gender binary and masculinity? They called to her, she eased their pain, and then they all died.  
She didn’t know who taught Kaz that song, all she knew is that someone, likely older than him sat him down one day and told him the words. She could almost see a pair of weathered hands gripping his own tiny ones. Telling him the words, telling him their meaning, telling him when to say them. “It calls the reaper man to you child. Only say them when you’re about to die, and only if you’re in great pain.” She could hear on the breeze. She wondered if he had been scared when it was told to him. Did he experience a lot of death in his short life? Did he think about his mortality often?  
It did not matter either way as Inej came to rest, crouching on the waves next to him. She rested atop the foam and brine, the smell of rotting flesh and ocean stink was everywhere. Kaz was lying atop the body of his brother, at least Inej assumed they were related, both had the same black hair and long faces, covered in fire pox sores. She rested atop the waves as light as a feather, and leaned over Kaz, casting a shadow over his small face.  
“Hello child, you’ve called me, how can I ease your pain?” She murmured. The boy licked his chapped lips and looked at her with the same dead eyes she had seen on so many before him.  
“Don’t want to hurt,” he croaked “ can’t die yet.” His lips were blue and his eyes glassy as he stared right through her and into the night sky.  
“I cannot help you live child, I cannot control your passing more than you can control the tides or the weather.”  
Kaz scrunched up his face in a tired approximation of anger. He gripped onto the jacket of his older brother, as he steadily raised a hand to point at her. “You don’t understand Reaper, not dying here. I need you to help Jordie die, he can’t sing the song, he needs to pass okay. I’m about to be evil and I need to know it’s not gonna hurt Jordie’s soul.” Jordie was already dead, long dead for many hours, Inej already knew that, and she figured that Kaz did as well. Kaz was shaking from the cold, he would die of hypothermia soon. She wanted to tell him that helping a dead boy wouldn’t help anything, but she looked at his dead eyes once more and decided that it would be best to humor him.  
“I will help,” Inej brushed away the strands of hair that had broken loose of her braid. “and you’re not evil Kaz, you’re just a child.” She sighed and leaned over Kaz, past him and kissed the top of Jordie’s forehead. It didn’t do anything, her kiss only helped if the person was still alive, if there was still some pain to ease. Kaz let out a shuddering breath and coughed twice.  
“Now, leave.” Inej cocked her head, she had never had a person tell her to leave before. Never had someone deny help when she was always willing to give it. “I said, I’m about to become evil, and I don’t want you here to see it.”  
“Are you sure child, I ca-”  
“Leave!” cried Kaz “I’m not dying! I don’t need your help!” He was so small, but he screamed at her with all the energy he could muster. He swatted at her with his left hand and she leaned out of his reach.  
Inej sighed “Okay, I suppose I can take the hint. I will leave, do you want me to come back later?”  
“NO! I’m not dying! I have to get revenge! I have to make them pay!”  
She sighed again and stood on top of the waves. There hadn’t been anyone who had called on her and not already accepted their death, she wasn’t entirely sure what to do. She blinked at him for a few seconds, and then disappeared to leave him to his own devices. 

 

She thought about Kaz for the rest of that night, when she kissed the forehead of another man dying of fire pox, and again when a woman bled out on a side alleyway from a knife wound to her gut. Seven hours later the sun rose and Inej decided that she was going to check on the boy once more. She knew that he probably would be cross with her, but she couldn’t help feeling intrigued by his anger and plans for revenge.  
When she floated back to the body pile, Kaz and his dead brother were nowhere to be found. She looked over the other bodies, all bloated and gray from the ocean water. None of them were the boys and Inej chuckled, she had to admire his strength. She scoured the whole sea around Ketterdam searching for the bodies of the two boys, but only found Jordie, floating alone, miles away from the city. She closed his eyes, as she knew it was a tradition most humans cared to do and Kaz must have forgotten. She looked to the city, smoke rising from it’s factories, mixing with the early morning fog. She smiled because somewhere out the Kaz Rietveld was alive and on a path of revenge. This was how Kaz was different. Kaz would be the first mortal to call on her and not die.


	2. second (dry rot and guns)

Inej had forgotten much of how she was when she was still human. She didn’t regret it at all, maybe that was a thing that would have made her sad had she still been mortal. She still remember things if she tried though, not completely forgotten, just hidden if she didn’t want to think about it. She could remember her father, her mother, the caravan she grew up in, and the friends she played with under the willow trees. She couldn’t remember their names, just their faces. A little boy with soft brown hair who would cry when Inej pushed him, twin sisters who wore their hair in twin braids and were the best at dancing, a boy two years older than Inej with a spirit in his soul that caused him to shout strange words sometimes, and a girl who didn’t talk much but was loved by all animals.  
She sometimes wondered what kind of friends a boy like Kaz would play with, did a boy as angry as he even have friends? 

The second time she met Kaz was when she learned that he may have claimed not to have friends, but cherished his “underlings” dearly.  
The Dancing Weevil was one of the worst inns in the whole Barrel. It had been in better keep when Inej was still alive, but sometime since then it must have changed hands for she now got many calls from its residents’ rooms. Usually she was called by some hapless addict dying of an overdose, or maybe a gang member who had been carted into a room to bleed out surrounded by four walls instead of the outside. The owners didn’t care, just as long as they were paid enough money to make it worth the clean-up.  
Pieter Sneijder had lived in a manner that was similar to the thousands of other children of the Barrel, he lied, he stole, he killed, and he wasn’t going to live past the age of thirteen. Pieter had probably been stabbed in a gang war, was what Inej assumed, his pale face was sickly, and he clutched his bleeding side as two other men placed him on the rickety, lice-infested bed. Someone must have told him the Reaper’s song when he was young because, as his pale blue eyes saw the water-damaged ceiling, the gravity of the situation struck him like a bullet and a quick plea to her passed through his lips.  
“Don’t worry Pieter, I’m here now.” Inej sighed. She climbed in through the window and took stock of the situation. The two men who had laid Pieter down had just left the room, leaving him alone with the weak gas lamp, the peeling discolored wallpaper, the ceiling’s dry rot, and the distinct smell of mildew. She sighed and clucked as she walked toward the bed. “You’re not alone, don’t worry. It was awful of them to leave while you’re still here.”  
“You’re not a man.” Was all Pieter could reply. His face had impossibly become even more ashen than it was before. He was going to die soon.  
“No, I’m not,” replied Inej “but I am the Reaper and I can help you.”  
“Please do.” he croaked in response.  
She leaned over him, prepared to kiss his forehead, when she heard the door slam open and someone command “Step away from him!” It was Kaz Rietveld, in front of a medic, standing in the doorway. “I thought I heard your voice, you get away from him! Pieter isn’t dying!”  
Inej cocked her head while she tried to figure out what was going on. Usually only someone who had called her could see her, all other people shouldn’t be able too. Then she remembered, he had called her, she never helped his soul pass and he was not dead, but he had called her all the same and so could still see her.  
The poor medic adjusted her glasses and asked “Who? I don’t see anyone?” to Kaz. It was obvious she was overworked medical student filling her community service requirements, her large eyes ringed with bags and her blond hair falling out of its bun. It looked as though Kaz had pulled her straight off the street to help, she clutched her equipment bag nervously to her chest like a shield as she surveyed the room looking for who Kaz was talking to.  
He shut her up with a glare and a “Fix him up, now.” The medic rushed past Kaz and cringed at the sight of Pieter on the bed.  
“Why did no one hold his wound? You’re supposed to compress the area to stop the bleeding.” She stuttered, “Good Geizen, he’s not gonna survive with this much blood loss.”  
“You better make him.” Replied Kaz bluntly, and he snapped his fingers twice. The men who had left the room quickly returned. They bent down next to the bed and waited as the medic gave them instructions on how to help her attempt to save Pieter. Kaz side-eyed Inej from where she stood next to the bed. He made a “come here” motion with his gloved hands and stepped into the hotel room’s cramped wash closet.  
The wash closet wasn’t much better the other room. The dry rot was even worse on the ceiling, and the wallpaper had been ripped so horribly in some places that it was possible to see the previous wallpapers beneath it. Kaz didn’t sit on any of the surfaces and neither did Inej, probably both out of habit with not trusting anywhere that they themselves hadn’t seen cleaned.  
“Listen,” Kaz was trying to make a stern face with her, but she could still see that he was afraid of her, afraid of death “ you can’t let Pieter die. He’s my best spy.”  
She sighed, this was not the first time someone had tried to bargain with her for a life. She gave him the response that she had given so many before him. “I don’t control death, I’m not that kind of reaper. All I can do is offer a little less pain on one’s way to the afterlife. I’m not powerful enough to do anything more than what I do now.”  
Kaz’s jaw tightened “I am Dirtyhands, you will do as I say.” He pulled out a small silver pistol from his jacket’s breast pocket, and brandished in front of her chest. “I cheat the system. Greed bends to my will. Death bends to my will.” Inej sighed again. To any average person, Kaz would look quite serious about his death threats, but Inej had seen many, gave the kiss of death to millions, and knew the fear of mortals like the back of her hand.  
“If you shoot me Kaz Rietveld, the bullet will go straight through my body and into the wall.”  
Kaz swallowed. The faucet in the sink dripped. He lowered the gun tentatively. “Please, I don’t want Pieter to die. He’s only twelve. His older sister works with the dregs, I can’t let her down on my watch.” He looked a little remorseful and sad for the first time in their conversation.  
“Then you should not have promised her his safety.” she tilted her head to the side. “You are not evil yet. You don’t like killing, you don’t like death.”  
Kaz fired off the gun, and would have hit her in the chest had she not been an incorporeal spirit that could only interact with the mortal world when she wanted to. The bullet instead lodged itself in the bathroom wall, much like she had predicted. “I am Dirtyhands, I am evil, and I was born from the filth and death of the barrel. I don’t fear death, I am it’s harbinger.” He swallowed, the words were less directed at her and more at himself, so she indulged him with silence.  
In the silence she could hear Pieter give out a wet, rattling cough, and the medic mutter out a string of curses from beyond the door. Inej took this as her queue to leave, “Goodbye Dirtyhands, may you abandon this sordid life and find peace.” she passed through the bathroom door and Kaz didn’t follow her.  
She walked up to the bed and stared down at Pieter again. His pale hair was splayed around his face like a halo, and he barely moved his eyes to look at her.  
“Please miss Reaper.” he whispered.  
“Of course,” Inej responded “may your next life be better than this one.” She crouched, leaning over the bloodstained bedspread and softly kissed Pieter on the forehead as she had done with so many before him. As his pain lessened, his eyes began to turn glassy. He smiled softly at the ceiling one more time before he let out one final breath.  
There was a kind of silence that hung in the room that can only be caused by a death, it wasn’t broken until the Medic cursed and wiped her hands on a dirty rag. “Well, this is a less than satisfactory situation.” she checked Pieter’s pulse once more, and whispered to the men, “Is Dirtyhands the kinda guy who would kill me for blotching this up?”  
One man shrugged nonchalantly and the other grunted, “Probably.” The Medic paled, and quickly started shoving her equipment into her bag.  
“I’m going to leave before my six years of university study and seven thousand Kruge get wasted because crime bosses have anger management issues.” She pulled a floppy hat on her head and bowed to the two men. As the Medic shuffled out of the door unimpeded Inej decided to leave as well. 

She flew up through the roof and didn’t stop rising until all the city was stretched out before her. Kaz was on the path to becoming a gangster, not exactly what she hoped for him, she had thought he would have wanted to get as far away from the city as soon as possible. It didn’t matter was what she reminded herself. Kaz Rietveld was just another mortal stumbling through the world, running towards his death just a little faster than others was all. She absentmindedly regarded the space on her tunic where his bullet would have hit her had she been corporeal. She would have to be more cautious next time she met him, and there would definitely be a next time, she was sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Medic's name is Marya Coughlan and she's single ladies! I can't stop thinking about how hard it probably is for non-heartrender doctors to get jobs in a world where Grisha Mcwhatsherface can just waltz by and seal up any darn wound...


	3. third (alleyways and simple tunes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings:just a quick reference to suicidal idealization in the second paragraph, thought I'd warn you if that's something that you don't enjoy reading about!

Inej liked the way the song rhymed when people sang it. She could remember that when she was a child her mother would sing little rhyming songs to her so she would laugh. Her mother had not been the one to teach Inej the reaper song, the song was a Kerch tradition, even though it had originated in Ravkah. Ravkan immigrants were the ones who spread it through Kerch and especially in Ketterdam, a city of immigrants.  
Another girl at the Menagerie had taught Inej the Reaper’s song, whispered it to her late one night. The girl’s name was Ndidi and she was one of the Zemeni girls who lived with Inej. Ndidi had a beautiful singing voice, when Inej first heard her sing she sounded like a saint. The pair had confided in each other at times, rubbing ointments on each other’s bruises and swapping stories of their childhoods. When Inej had told Ndidi she often contemplated killing herself, all Ndidi could offer was the song that could ease the pain of her death. Some people had beautiful singing voices and others had awful ones, but saturated with the fear of death, few sounded lovely when they sang. 

four years years later Inej met Kaz again, and this time he was not a child. He also was not anywhere close to dying. He sung the song for her though, his lips unstained with blood, his hair in perfect order, his suit barely rumpled.   
“Hello Kaz Rietveld, it seems we meet once again.” she had taken to wearing a long cloak since they last met, mostly for the exciting aesthetic of it. When she landed next to him it billowed out in all directions, and she thought it made her look quite intimidating.   
If Kaz was intimidated by her, he didn’t show it, instead he glanced in her direction, and with a snort responded “I go by Kaz Brekker now.”   
“Alright Kaz Brekker, you don’t look like you need my help.” and she crossed her arms.  
“I don’t-” he chuckled, and made a sweeping arm motion to a man slumped against the opposite wall “-but he does. Mr. Van Wieren is, or was a religious man, he would have liked to call you up. He can’t though, I slashed his windpipe.” Inej stepped toward the dying man and saw the bloodstains all over the front of the jacket, and dripping down his shirt. Mr. Van Wieren let out a soggy cough, and looked at the pair of them with glassy blue eyes.   
Inej clucked in dissatisfaction. She bent over and kissed Van Wieren’s cheek and patted his shoulder. He let out a few more soggy coughs, trying to say something to her, but couldn’t. She waited until he died before she acknowledged Kaz again.   
“Kaz, it seems as though you have become quite the killer.” she said, turning to face him, to face the boy who was no longer a boy.   
“I told you I’d become evil, you didn’t believe me did you Reaper?” He was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.  
“It’s not that I didn’t believe you, I was just hoping you were wrong.”  
Kaz sighed and pushed back his hair, he had grown it out since she last saw him. There was the suggestion of curls atop his head, as though if he only grew it out just a bit longer, he’d have curly hair, but based on the amount of shine she could see, he probably slicked it back with gel and coerced it into lying flat and straight.   
“What are you?” he asked sharply “I’d usually be less direct about it, but based on the last time we met, and now, I know you’re not a fever dream, and you’re definitely not human.”  
“No-” Inej sighed, crossing her arms “-I’m not human. I am one of the Grim reapers who wanders the mortal world, helping the dying.”   
“So you don’t kill them?” Kaz was cleaning the blood off a wicked sharp switchblade that probably the murder weapon.   
“I feel like we keep going over this. I don’t kill anyone, I simply ease the pain of the dying who are suffering from a painful departure and request my help.”  
“So, are there others who control dying and things like that?”  
“No.” Inej didn’t really want to give Kaz too much information about the workings of the other reapers and wraiths who did these jobs. “No one controls death except for the person who dies, they can take all the steps they want to either put off or quicken their own death.”   
Kaz blew out a puff of air in exasperation “Well, I already knew that. Anyone can be a shitthead like this guy-” and he gestured to the dead man “-Who had the nerve to try and rob me after he knew who I was.”  
“And who are you now?” Inej quirried.  
“Kaz Brekker. The bastard of the Barrel. The one called Dirtyhands.” and he waved his gloved hands out in front of her in a patronizing manner.  
Inej sighed again, she patted the non-existent dust off of her trousers and cloak and raised an eyebrow at him. “I hope you don’t continue your path to being evil.”  
“I thought I already was evil?”  
“No, just a killer. You are not a good person, but there are people who are far worse than you who walk these streets.”  
He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t and instead let out a short puff of breath and kicked a stone that lay in the alleyway. Inej patiently waited for him to muster up the courage to say whatever he wanted to. She didn’t entirely know why, chances were that she probably had something better to be doing, but as always, her checkups on Kaz always seemed to be intriguing.   
“Were you ever alive?” he finally mustered, not looking at her.  
“Yes.”  
“Did you ever do anything wrong? Did you ever kill someone? Ever feel like the whole world has wronged you and the only way to get revenge is to sink to their level?”  
“Yes, no, and no.” Inej picked at the end of her braid, “You’re going to have to work a bit harder for me to tell you anything about the life I led before I died.”   
“Fine then,” Kaz replied with a mirthless chuckle “then I’ll let you be on your way. I’m sure you have things to do that I’d hate to keep you from.”  
“I’m sure you have sordid duties of your own Kaz Brekker.”  
He straightened the lapels of his suit “Plenty of things to do, places to be, people to kill, stuff to steal.” Inej supressed a smile and took a sweeping bow for a farewell. To her surprise Kaz bowed to her as well, jerky and quick at his waist before leaving the alleyway in a half jog. 

Inej stood still for a few seconds after he left, staring at where he had stood, and then looking at the body her had left. The blood from his fatal wound still soaked Van Wieren’s shirt, and a sewer rat had come to sniff at the corpse.   
She wondered how many people had Kaz killed and scammed like this one, was he evil? Was she just fooling the both of them by saying there was still some good inside him? It didn’t matter, she slapped both of her cheeks to wake up her face, a thing she used to do before performances as a child. With a quick leap she landed on the roof of the restaurant that framed one of the sides of the alley, about two stories up. That was one of her favorite things about being an informal deity, people may have claimed that the laws of gravity didn’t apply to her when she was still alive, but now they truly did not.   
From the roof she could see Kaz rushing away along one of the busier streets, she wondered what he was off to do, probably more bad things. She hoped she wouldn’t have to see him again, but knew that their paths would cross more often, now that he knew he could call her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaz: My crimes are justified because I was hurt as a child! This city chewed be up and spit me back out, but I'll knock out its teeth! I'm only giving back the violence and suffering it gave to me!  
> Inej: Cool motive, still murder.... we all had shitty childhoods....


	4. fourth (water and waffles)

Inej had learned how to swim as a child, like all the other Suli children once they reached old enough. It was a commandment among those groups that worshipped the saints, so most children across Ravkah, even those who didn’t live near water could swim if the need should arise. This was because of the tragic death of the Martyr Yevgeniy, who in an attempt to escape from a fearsome Druskelle longboat fell into the ocean, and being unable to swim to safety was captured again. He had stakes driven into his heart and was burned at the stake for being a Grisha, but the moral that most parents and authority figures drove home was that if he had known how to swim he could have escaped and been fine. In contrast with Yevgeniy, Inej was quite proficient with swimming and every time her family had settled near a body of water she would sprint into it at top speeds and refuse to stop swimming until it became dark out and her mother called her for supper, saying things like “A bird on the tightrope and a fish in the lake!” or “If you stay in there too long your whole body will turn into a prune!”  
The only thing she had ever liked about her room at the menagerie was that if she looked just right, she could see the ocean between the crack in two buildings. Glittering and blue off in the distance, she could imagine running into it, swimming in it, swimming all the way home and never returning. Swimming to the shores of Ravkah and her mother calling to her from the beach “stop swimming and come eat!” like nothing had ever gone wrong.

Strangely, when Inej met Kaz once more he did not call for her, but rather was in the same general vicinity of someone else’s death.  
Ms. Albina Vilar was, for lack of better words, a drug dealer. She sold stimulants and depressants, ones much stronger than the ones that any person could find in an apothecary shop. She conducted most of her business by the docks, so she could jump into a boat and row away should the Stadwatch arrive. She also had a bowie knife buried deep in her chest by the time she called for Inej one foggy autumn night. Albina smiled and motioned for her to come closer as Inej landed on the wood in a flurry of fabric and hair.  
“I always knew Death was a woman.” Albina muttered as Inej came closer “It’s too fearsome and cold to be the work of any man.”  
“I am not death,” Replied Inej with a smile as she sat with her legs crossed in front of the dying woman “I am merely a wraith who will take your pain before you meet your death.”  
Albina laughed, and then coughed, sputtering droplets of blood across the wooden planks of the dock. “Then take it all honey. I’m done with this life, my only regret is not making enough money to get out of this hellhole before I died.”  
“Many have the same regret. May your next life be more prosperous than this one” Inej softly kissed the woman’s cheek and sat with her as her blood soaked into the wood and dripped into the ocean water, as her head dipped and her breath stilled.  
Staring at the water was calming and Inej sat on the docks for long after the woman had died, just watching the waves lap up against the wooden pillars.  
She was not sure if it was seconds, minutes, or hours when she heard footsteps walking down the dock. Flicking her head up, all she saw was a patrol of three Stadwatch officers who had probably seen Albina’s body.  
“Saints above, another one?” sighed the man with the bushy mustache.  
“I hate when this happens at this time of night, the Reaper’s Barge isn’t gonna be around to collect bodies until nightfall tomorrow.” another one grunted.  
Inej knew they couldn’t see her, but she always was put on edge by their crisp purple uniforms and manicured faces. She quickly jumped off the dock, and onto the water as the men came closer. The last thing she heard was “I’ll go ring a body collection crew.” piped from the tallest one, and then she was running across the top of the water perpendicular with the buildings. She stopped at an unassuming dock about a half a mile away from the previous one, she hadn’t heard anyone else call to her as she trotted along the surface of the ocean, so it was probably shaping up to be a slow night. Early Autumn nights usually were, not cold enough to kill those who slept on the streets, and not hot enough for the violent crimes of the summer.  
She jumped onto a seemingly abandoned pier with the usual grace she tried to do everything with. Even though people wouldn’t see her, she couldn’t cast aside the theatrical need to do a flip every time she jumped somewhere. She dusted the nonexistent dirt off her trousers.  
“Reaper, out for a moonlit stroll?” Inej whirled around to see Kaz standing a closed store’s awning behind her, eating a cooked herring on a stick. If she hadn’t been supernatural she probably wouldn’t have been able to see him in the shadows with his dark coat and hat.  
“Hello Brekker, I can assume the same of you?”  
“Maybe. Maybe I’m looking for more helpless victims to eat alive.” he jested.  
She scoffed at him and replied, “Your herring is a helpless victim indeed.” Kaz looked at hand holding the herring and shrugged. he tossed it to the side and stepped out of the shadows. The bags under his eyes had gotten deeper since they last met, and if it was even possible his face had gotten more angular. Some ridiculous, human, part of her worried about how much sleep he was getting before she squashed it down.  
Kaz walked out onto the pier to stand next to her at a respectful distance “It’s the anniversary of our meeting.” he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets  
“I was unaware.” Inej felt bad for some ridiculous reason.  
“I didn’t expect you to. I’m sure that you visit many people in this hell hole every day.”  
“Sometimes.” she added “Sickness related deaths have actually decreased lately, at least ones that I help out with.” She probably shouldn’t have told him but, Inej couldn’t stop feeling bad for Kaz.  
He just stared at the ground. “You don’t have to coddle me Reaper, I’m not a child or a simpleton. I’m not sad about his death, I’m only angry.” He scuffed a boot against the cobblestones. “I’m getting revenge on the man who hurt us.” Inej only nodded, she figured that it was the best response she could give. They both stood on the pier  
Kaz turned around, away from her. “It’s too cold to just stand here and mope like a milkmaid, I’m walking Reaper, follow me if you like, but I won’t stay here and wait for you.” Not giving time for her response he slipped on a mask of the imp that he had pulled from his coat and began to stomp off into the foggy distance.  
Inej checked to see if anyone was calling her before she followed him. No one had called to her, she had been a little surprised. She didn’t want to go rushing after him though, she chose to briskly walk after him instead of running or flying. To her continued surprise she found that he had in fact waited for her at the next street corner. Inej didn’t want to call him out on the fact that he said that he wouldn’t wait, so she caught up and stood right next to him without saying anything. He looked down at her and nodded, as if he was thanking her for coming along.

As they walked along the winding and twisting streets of West Stave Inej was glad that she was an immortal wraith who didn’t tire. Kaz’s long legs and long strides would have been no match for her had she been a living girl. Every step of his was at least two of hers and that was just him leisurely walking, or at least as leisurely as he could ever really be. He was probably scowling under his Imp mask or something similar.  
“I’m not going to talk very loud to you when we get to more populated areas, I may not look like myself with this mask, but I don’t need people thinking I’m a lunatic or a drunk.”  
“Fair enough.” replied Inej.  
They walked in silence for a couple more blocks before Inej popped the question. She looked down at her feet and weighed her options as they walked. “Do you want me to become visible so you don’t have to worry about talking?”  
“I’m not worried about it.”  
“Alright then, but do you want me to appear as visible to the people around you?”  
“Why haven’t you done it before?”  
Inej shrugged “No reason to. It also takes a bit of concentration.”  
Kaz mirrored her shrug “Might as well, we can go to the Lid, eat waffles, and count people who get pickpocketed.”  
Inej stomped twice both her feet and allowed all the mortals in the world to see her. Naturally she traded her reapers garb for what she had enjoyed to wear back when she was mortal. Her black pants and shirt shifted into the frilled blouse and long skirts she would have worn about had she still been among her people. Her single braid turned to the twin braids that she used to wear as a child. Suli women didn’t wear as much makeup and jewelry and the people believed they did, she had always been more comfortable unadorned anyway.  
“You’re Suli?” was Kaz’s response, half question, half statement.  
“Ages ago.” for a moment Inej worried that Kaz was the sort of person who cared about things like races and ethnicities, and in the span of a few microseconds she steeled herself for a rude comment. “Have you got a problem with it?”  
To her relief Kaz responded “No, just wondering. There isn’t a large Suli population in Ketterdam, but there was a group who would stop in my hometown for a month or so every summer.” he shrugged noncommittally and they kept walking.

The Lid was always in a state of constant revelry no matter the time day or night, but it always surprised Inej when she went there and saw the hordes of partying people. Lampposts lit up the whole area as though it was day. People from all directions were advertising their gambling dens or trying to sell food. There was a band playing a loud and jaunty tune in front of one of the gambling dens, and although he tried to hide it, Inej could see Kaz matching his steps to the beat of the song. A few eyes followed the pair of them as they walked by, Inej assumed it was the pair’s contrasting aesthetics, with her looking like a traditional Suli peasant and Kaz forever looking like an angel of death, no matter the disguises he wore.  
“Do you eat?” Kaz quiried, stopping in front of a brightly colored waffle vendor.  
“Only if you’re paying.” she responded. He shrugged and purchased them both a simple waffles with caramel on top.  
After maneuvering through crowds of drunk tourists, they came to rest at a unoccupied bench. Inej noticed how Kaz spared a moment of hesitation to how close he sat next to her. 

“I don’t like to hang around the slat on the anniversary.” Kaz admitted after a few minutes of silence “I prefer not to be around people I know, so I go on long walks.” Inej didn’t see fit to actually say anything, but she did nod in acknowledgement. “I don’t usually go have fun either, it’s odd.”  
“If it’s any consolation I don’t really consider the lid fun.” she said, taking a bite of the waffle “There’s too many casinos and loud noises, I like smaller parties.”  
Kaz shifted just a bit in his seat “Oh, it’s fun to watch the pigeons get scammed though.”  
“You and I have very different definitions of fun then.”  
She took another bite of the waffle, savoring the taste of the gooey caramel. Inej didn’t need to eat, so she hadn’t bothered to in decades. Out of the corner of her eye, Inej could see that Kaz was looking at her instead of his waffle, and hadn’t taken a bite. “Didn’t think of how to eat your waffle with your mask on, did you?” she made sure not to look at him in the eyes.  
“No, that’s not it.” They both weren’t looking at each other now. “Look, Reaper I wanted-”  
“Inej.”  
“What did you say?”  
“My name is Inej. We’ve met more than a few times, and I know your name, it would be the polite thing for you to know mine.”  
Kaz let out a little, soft “Inej.” from under his mask, almost too soft for her to hear over the din of the brass band passing by. Inej looked up at him to find that he was staring down at her. Not saying anything. Holding his waffle ineffectually in one hand and clenching his other fist.  
She was about to ask Kaz what was wrong when she heard it. Twenty nine blocks away, under a bridge, Sjors Van Der Ven was dying of an infectious wound on his leg. As he felt his consciousness slip in and out of fever he called for Inej. She had to help him.  
“Listen, Inej, I’ve wanted to talk to you abou-”  
“I have to go.” she cut Kaz off from the beginning of his sentence. “Someone just called me.”  
Kaz didn’t respond for a few seconds, and when he did his voice sounded deeper and more closed off. “Of course, I forgot you’re still on the job.”  
“I am always on my job,” Inej shrugged “I can’t really change that.” She passed him what was left of her waffle “I’m not going to finish this, do you want it?”  
“No.” Kaz bowed his masked head “Good luck with the next person I suppose.”  
She rose from the bench and made a subtle curtsey with the ends of her long skirt before she disappeared. A balloon seller who was walking by visibly startled when she disappeared from view. Inej laughed despite herself and noticed that Kaz’s shoulders relaxed just a bit when she did. She hadn’t noticed he was tense.  
As she ran away and began to take flight her long skirt and sleeves turned into her reaper’s garb. Her bright reds and blues became all solid black, and part of her missed how nice it felt to wear what she liked.  
Inej spared one last glance behind her before she rounded a street corner. Kaz was still sitting on the bench, just staring at her. At least she hoped he was, his mask eye holes were too dark to see into from a distance, but he was at least looking in her direction. Her next thought was that she had hoped he was looking at her, why did she hope that? Why did she care where he looked?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands* I wonder what Kaz was trying to say???? Who knows? not me?!?


	5. fifth (cards and rooms)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Descriptions of vomiting in this chapter. I’m not sure what the name is for the phobia of vomiting, but if you don’t wanna read it just skip from “When Inej crawled through his window at two in the morning he was splayed out on his bed, sweating profusely.” until “He made a grabbing motion towards inej from the edge of his bed.” it’s not very long, but I figured I should mention it!

When Inej was ten she got her fortune told for the first time. She already knew her destiny, she wanted to be an acrobat, but her father told her that it was always good to keep your options open. Besides, Inej’s new aunt was a fortune teller, and was famous for it too. Sarika and Inej’s uncle Neeraj had gotten married recently, and their wedding had been very beautiful. Inej had been a little worried about it, Sarika was beautiful and intimidating, but when the older woman gave her the tiniest wink before Inej picked her first few cards, Inej felt better. The first card was the seven of wands Sarika said it represented “That you will gain success among those who are your rivals, but only if you work hard and take actions.” At that Inej beamed, she did want to be the best acrobat in all of Ravkah. Next was the nine of swords, Sarika frowned Inej frowned at the card too, the lady on the card was crying and there were lots of sharp looking swords “You will be tested in a trial that you have to suffer alone. Sometimes it can mean that you will need to spend a time in solitude reflecting on your life.” Inej nodded, trying not to look worried in front of Sarika. The last card made Sarika frown even more, as Inej looked down at it she gasped. A leering skeleton stared back at her, sitting atop a skeletal horse and holding a wicked mace. “Now what despite what people might think, Death is not inherently a bad card. It can also mean the death of a bad situation so that a new, better one can be born.” Inej nodded but didn’t really hear her. The skeleton kept staring her down from its place on the table.

 

The next time Inej met Kaz she met him on his home turf, in the pits of the barrel. Similar to most gangs of the barrel, the Dregs were composed of people who were just better than the homeless beggars, but still not healthy or rich to live in the better parts of town. Kaz had a little higher standards than most gang leaders was what she had heard. He was critical of excessive drinking or drugs within the Slat, and avoided hiring those who spent too much time in the brothels, or tried to bring a payed lover back to the Slat. Some found it annoying, others appreciated it, most just followed the rules and passed them off as Kaz Brekker’s eccentricities.  
Erling Knutsen was who called to her, but the people at the Slat knew him as Franz Boer, the guy who gave off a “don’t mess with me” aura, and wrung his hands a lot. He stood taller than most teenagers his age, an almost dead giveaway of his Fierdian heritage had he not inherited his mother’s curly black hair and dark eyes. He burned with the internal anger and passion for life that is popular among protagonists, and had he grown up in any city but Ketterdam he probably would have grown up to be a great man. Instead he was born to a sickly prostitute and a Fierdian war criminal, so he drowned his passions in stimulants and the like.  
When Inej crawled through his window at three in the morning he was splayed out on his bed, sweating profusely. “Oh thank the saints,” he muttered “I’m dying, and least I think. I think that Jurda was laced with something weird.”  
“Most likely.” was all Inej could reply before Erling vomited all over the floor.  
Erling moaned before spitting a chunk of something red onto the floor “I really messed up on this one didn’t I?”  
“Yes you did. Only part of it was your fault though.”  
He paused “And you’re the reaper man? I always thought you’d look a little more-” and then vomited again, bile mixed with blood.  
“People always think I’ll look like a little more.”  
He made a grabbing motion towards inej from the edge of his bed. “Brekker is gonna toss my body into the canal in pieces when he finds out I died in his precious Slat.” and he gripped his sweat stained shirt and began to breathe heavily.  
Inej crossed the room slowly and, avoiding the mess and crouched in front of Erling. He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “He will be upset, but he will also miss you.”  
“Ha, you know the bastard or something?”  
“Something like that.”  
“Of course Brekker is friends with death.”  
“Don’t worry, it’s more like business associates.” she assured as he coughed.  
“Could you do one thing for me, before I kick the bucket?” Erling stuttered quickly, his breathing picking up into a panic. “Make sure that Lorry isn’t the first p-p-p-person to find my body, he’s-he’s gonna be so crushed about this, I’d told him I quit.”  
She nodded “I’ll do what I can.” She floated above where the dying boy lay and gave him a gentle kiss on the crown of his head. Erling’s breath slowed, and his frame relaxed. He collapsed onto the bed and let out a few more gasping breaths.

 

Inej waited a few seconds after he was dead before getting up and surveying the room. His room was too cramped to have anything except a bed and a little table with a chair. Erling didn’t keep much in the way of personal items, but she could see a small photograph of a whole group of people. They were all either standing or sitting on simple chairs, and all looked as though they ruled the world and were enjoying it. She picked it up, and studied it for a few seconds before setting it down.  
Inej wondered who Lorry was, and how best to stop from seeing Erling first. She picked up the photograph again, and studied it closer. From left to right it seemed to be a tall Zemini girl with hair like a cloud, a short Ravkan boy with a thick embroidered jacket on, a shorter girl with many braids piled onto the top of her head, and Erling, his arm around the next boy with a single eyepatch and sunny smile. Inej assumed that as long as she didn’t alert any of those people first she’d be fine.  
Slipping through the door into the hallway was easy, and slowly floating down the stairs was even easier. She met a lanky person as they climbed up the stairs, more like she saw them and they didn’t see her. They wobbled as they scaled the steps, leaning heavily on the banister, probably drunk. Their short hair looked like it had been sent through a blender, their shirt was untucked, and their suspenders trailed behind them like a pitiful tail.  
Another reaper power that Inej enjoyed was the fact that she could know anyone’s name and a fact about them, as long as she saw their face in person. She didn’t do it often, but it helped sometimes when convincing a mortal that they should do something for her. This teen was named Marijn Christoffersen and they were saving up to go to the university and become a lawyer. They were also going to be the one to happen upon Erling’s body first.  
Inej let her voice be heard by them, let them hear her words but nothing more. “Marijn. The man you know as Franz has died in his room. Go to him.”  
“Oh saints on a stick!” they jumped and smacked the back of their head with one hand and clutched the bannister with the other. “Did I drink that much?”  
Inej sighed “No you didn’t, just go check on Franz’s body.”  
“I know about sixty seven Franzs. Everyone in this city has the same name and it’s Franz.” they wobbled a little bit and yawned. “My dad’s name is Franz, my mom’s name is Franz, all my sisters are named Franz.” and they mumbled off into intelligibility.  
“Franz Boer.” corrected Inej, this was taking longer than she wanted.  
They stood ineffectually in the stairwell, just staring into the distance. “Franz Boer, Franz Boer, Franz Boer.” they muttered “Oh yeah, that guy!” and they thrust their free hand into the air “I know that guy!”  
“Keep it down will you?” Shouted a high pitched voice from behind a closed door nearby the stairs. “Between the puking and the shouting you’d think I lived in an alleyway!”  
“Jie, my favorite person whom I love. You won’t believe this, Franz just died!” shouted Marijn, ignoring the request for silence “The voice in my head just told me so!”  
“Have you been drinking absinthe again?” asked the voice, still behind the door.  
“Nope, the voice said I didn’t!” they responded. Inej let her face rest into her hands, and sighed.  
A Shu girl poked half of her body out of a nearby door. Her hair was stuffed into a sleeping cap and it looked like she was wearing thick sleeping clothes, she scowled at Marijn. “What in the name of all things holy are you talking about, you ridiculous drunk?” as the aforementioned drunk climbed the stairs to stand next to her.  
“I just heard from a voice that Franz Blingerstein just died in his room.”  
“Boer, Franz Boer.” Inej corrected  
Marijn repeated “Franz Boer.” and gestured down the hall wildly.  
“What about Franz Boer?” Called a voice from the end of the hall, and Inej looked up from her hands to see Kaz rounding a corner at the very end of the hallway. It hadn’t been long since they last met, maybe a month or so, but Kaz hadn’t changed a bit. Maybe he looked more tired, but Inej could never really tell considering he always seemed to be in some state of fatigue.  
He was scowling at the two gang members in the hallway, but when he and Inej met eyes, his face softened for just a second. They both just stared at each other, Inej let herself smile at the realization that Kaz’s eyes just might be the color of coffee. She’d have to get a bit closer if she wanted to be completely sure though.  
“I have reason to believe that Franz Boer died boss.” blurted Marijn, who seemed to do a two hours worth of sobering up in two seconds. It broke Kaz and Inej out of their stares.  
“Okay then,” Kaz said “Then don’t you think, Mx. Chistoffersen, that you an Ms. Du should check on him then?” he addressed them in a way that made Inej glad she wasn’t one of his employees, considering it would either make her very nervous, or make her want to break the rules even more, just to see what would happen.  
They both chose to follow the rules though, and Jie did as well with only minimal grumbling. Marijn disappeared down another hallway in the opposite direction of Erling’s room. Jie continued on another hallway, which Inej knew was the right one. After a few seconds Marijn must have realized their mistake because they fast-walked out of their wrong hallway and into the right one.  
Inej waited on her side of the main hallway and Kaz waited on his. They both just stood and didn’t say anything. Inej opened her mouth to say hello, but was cut off by Jie shouting a string of curses and Marijn running wobbly past muttering “Gotta get a medic person, gotta tell Lorry, gotta get a cleaning person.” They tripped and fell down part of the stairs, and Inej winced. She waited for them to get up, and through adrenaline and alcohol, they rose to their feet and continued down the stairs, but a little bit slower.  
Kaz started to slowly walk down the corridor, not taking his eyes off the space at least an inch above Inej’s head. She could tell that he was trying not to look at her. He turned down the hallway to Erling’s room, and Inej chose to follow behind him.  
Jie was standing in the doorway of the room with one hand over her mouth and the other wrapped around her waist. “We’re pretty sure he’s dead, but Marijn is going to find a medic to make sure.” She whispered through the cracks in her fingers. “I thought he stopped doing that stuff.”  
“Apparently not.” Kaz griped. He looked disgustedly down at the mess of the room.  
After a few seconds Jie sighed, “I don’t want to be the one who has to tell Lorry about all of this.”  
“Well you’re going to have to be. I have no tact for emotional stuff, and I’ve got paperwork to fill out from the disaster with that bakery on twenty fourth street.”  
“Still?”  
“Unfortunately.” and Kaz quickly turned around to flee back to his room. Of course he didn’t look like he fled, to anyone but Inej it would have looked like he simply marched on. However, she could tell that he didn’t want to look at the body any longer and was using his impassive demeanor as a cover.  
Jie dragged her hand across her face and whispered “How do you get to so cold that you don’t care about a comrade's death? I’ll never understand you Brekker.” Inej figured that her job was done with Erling, so she turned around and followed Kaz away.

 

Inej didn’t want to talk to Kaz until they were by themselves, she knew that he wouldn’t respond to her if they were out in a public hallway. When she got to the doorway of his room however, he was standing with the door open, as if he was waiting for her.  
“She said you were a cold man.” was her greeting as she strode in the door. Kaz shut it behind her.  
“It’s probably better for her to think that anyway.” He eased into his desk chair and began to furiously write. Inej stared at his hunched back, his pointy shoulders, his skinny and tall frame. She wondered for a moment about what she had told Erling, were she a Kaz truly business associates? Were they friends? Some part of her wanted to say, yes of course they were friends. She didn’t really want to think about what Kaz thought of this whole thing.  
“What happened with the bakery?” She silently tip toed behind where he was sitting  
“One of my goons smashed the window with a misplaced punch, and the owner of the place doesn’t know what’s good for himself, because he’s trying to get the Stadwatch involved.” Kaz didn’t look at her when he spoke.  
“Well it’s good that you’re not just killing him, and trying to work it out instead.”  
“I can’t just kill him now because people will notice.”  
“Oh well, as they say, sometimes an action bests the intent.” was all Inej could respond with. She looked over Kaz’s shoulder and just saw lots of numbers and words lined up in his neat but spidery handwriting.  
Kaz huffed and turned to face her “What are you still doing here? Don’t you have places to be?” he scowled at her. Inej didn’t find it as intimidating as she thought he hoped it would be.  
“Is this both your office and bedroom?” she deflected.  
“No.” he replied “This is the office, the next room is my bedroom.”  
Inej shrugged, and started pacing the corners of his sparse office “Good, because I was thinking that this place doesn’t even have a bed in it. People may say you’re a demon, but you have to sleep somewhere.” She picked up a tack that was supposed to be keeping the bottom of a paper map pinned to the wall, and pinned it back where it was supposed to be. “They do say you’re a demon you know.”  
“Yes, I know that,” Kaz sighed, he was already back to working “that’s the whole point of cultivating a demonic persona. People call you a demon.”  
“Are you sleeping though? You look like shit.” She studied the map on the wall, it was a detailed map of Ketterdam.  
“What are you Reaper, my grandmother? Why do you care how much sleep I’ve been getting?” He sounded irritated, but Inej wasn’t really focusing on him any more, she was looking at the map.  
“Reaper? Inej?” he asked when she didn’t respond. She kept looking at the map, studying the streets and alleyways. After a few seconds she heard the chair scrape behind her and footsteps cross the floor. Kaz stood next to her and in front of the map. “What’s wrong, is something wrong with the map?” he asked.  
“What are you Brekker? My grandmother?” She bounced back. “I’m fine, just looking at the city. I didn’t get a lot of chances to travel around when I lived here, and now I don’t stop to take much time to notice the streets.” She pointed at a section labeled with “Little Ravkah” and poked at it a bit. “I think the geography has also changed a bit in the last few decades. This just used to be the Ravkahan embassy when I was around.”  
“How long has it been since then?” Kaz snorted “I think little Ravkah has been around since…” and he trailed off to do some silent thinking “....Well no one I know was alive before it was created.”  
“You know me.” Replied Inej  
“I do know you.” mirrored Kaz. he put a knuckle to his mouth in thought. “How old are you anyway?”  
“Isn’t that supposed to be a thing you don’t ask a lady?”  
“Don’t pull that on me.” he quietly chuckled. “You’re not a lady, you’re a firebomb.”  
Despite herself, Inej laughed. “Well, I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment.”  
“Think of it as one.” Kaz smiled just a little bit, a genuine one. It was nice to see him smile genuinely.  
Inej contemplated for a while. “I think I’ve been dead for about a hundred and seventy two years?” she counted it out again “Or maybe a hundred and sixty two? so that makes me in my one hundred and eighties.”  
Kaz nodded. “That’s pretty old.”  
she nodded in response, “I could be your grandmother.”  
Kaz grimaced dramatically. “I sure hope not, that woman was frightening. Used to hit me whenever I got dirt under my fingernails.”  
Inej made a swatting motion with her hand “I’m sure you deserved it.”  
“I was a model child.” Kaz replied and walked back to the desk and sat down. “Now I need to get back to work, you’re distracting me.”  
Inej put her hands behind her back and walked to the desk. There was a window next to the desk, not close enough to be a sniper liability, but one of those ones that opened only halfway and where made of glass thick enough to keep out any bullets anyway. The windows were getting thinner in new houses, glass blowing techniques must have been improving, but Inej liked the houses where the windows were so thick it warped whatever was outside. It reminded her of childhood and the caravans her family used to travel in. Kaz had a few little things on the windowsill, a little rock, a shard of colored glass, and a bulb which hadn’t sprouted yet.  
“What are these from?” she asked pointing to the windowsill.  
Kaz sighed and looked up “Oh,” he said in recognition once he noticed what she was pointing at. “I found that rock in the pocket of a man I killed once, the glass is from the windowpane of a church that I taught a little lesson to, and the tulip bulb,” he smiled at her, a sly smile “let’s just say that for some people they care more about flowers than paying back a debt to Dirtyhands.”  
Inej nodded as if she knew what he meant by the last statement. “And is that supposed to be a picture of me?” she pointed to the little card propped up against the desk and the wall. It looked to be from a tarot deck, one of the older ones. A skeleton with a mace was wearing a long cloak and stalking menacingly through a field, unsuspecting farmers stood in the distance. The word DEATH was in bright red letters on the bottom.  
“Nope, got that one as a gift.” Kaz gave it a quick glance. “Tried employing a Suli fortune-teller at the Crow Club for a while. Nice girl. When she left to go back to Ravkah she gave the card to me, said that I needed it or something. I think it was something about it being my destiny, which I thought was kind of rude.”  
Inej nodded “Well, you do know me after all.”  
“I do know you.” Kaz picked up the card and handed it to her, “Do you want it? It seems more fitting for you to have it.”  
“It’s bad luck to give away a gift from a fortune teller.” she warned.  
“Oh I doubt Ritika would mind.” Kaz still held it out.  
Inej took the card slowly “Fine, you’re the one who gets bad luck, not me.” She turned it over in her hands a few times and then pocketed it.  
“I wouldn’t have it any other way” Kaz countered “My middle name is bad luck and I live for the adrenaline rush of defying the laws of nature.”  
“Okay okay mr. Dirtyhands” Inej raised her hands in a placating gesture. She wandered to the window and looked out of it. The sky was that barely grey in the way that it looks before the sunrise even starts. “I’m gonna go now, you should go to bed, okay?” she said.  
Kaz ignored her and kept writing. “Hey, you.” Inej chided “Take care of yourself, I don’t want you to be the next person I help out.”  
“Alright Grandma Josephine, I’m going to bed after I finish this page.” Kaz waved his hand but didn’t look up from the desk.  
Inej sighed one more time. She opened up the window and wedged herself through like she was made of water. On the windowsill she crouched and sprung off the ledge. She had always enjoyed the weightlessness of the first few seconds of a jump, and when she didn’t have to worry about dying on the pavement it was even better. She hit the cobblestone with both feet and sprung off into a jump.  
Landing on the building across the street from the Slat she could just barely see inside Kaz’s window. She couldn’t see him, but she could see the stuff on the sill and the little light from his desk. Inej hope that he would listen to her and actually go to bed before the sun came up. She doubted he would though, he wasn’t very good at listening to advice, just like she wasn’t very good at not giving advice. Well, they always did say that friendships are based on mutual disregard of each other’s advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sometimes you can tell when the author tells people's fortunes and wants to flex on the plebeians)
> 
> Marjin is non-binary, and they're single ladies and gents! (They do have a massive crush on Jie though) I really love that Leigh just wrote us a fantasy book without homophobia???? I think about that a lot???? There's just lgbtq people out there living their lives being in a fantasy world without homophobia!!!!


	6. sixth (violence and crackers/cookies)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos! I'm trying to update once a week, but these next few chapters might take a bit, because I'm not very good at writing...........  
> (I was gonna say writing action scenes and romantic scenes, but not being good at writing in general works well too)

Inej cared so much for every single person she could. Before she was very young she would spend hours with her dolls, saving them from supposed illnesses. She then graduated to helping wild birds that had broken a wings, much to the upset of her parents. At the menagerie she would be beaten for helping her fellow girls instead of doing her job. Giving hugs and love to those who deserved it rather than those who paid for it. She didn’t like to think about it, she didn’t want to think about it, so she didn’t. She just kept of helping people no matter her age, where she was, or what state she was in. 

 

The plea for her help came from a Hilda Kolen and a beautiful townhouse in one of the richer districts. It had healthy ivy plants which scaled its walls intricate brickwork. From the looks of the lights and sounds coming from the upper floors Inej assumed that a party was going and her plea would most likely be from a overdose on alcohol or stimulants.  
When Inej climbed into the first story window of the building she was surprised to see Jesper standing in the room. There were other things in the room of course, lavish Shu carpets rested beneath dark oak furniture and enormous paintings of dour looking men filled the maroon walls. The embellishments that covered almost every surface that could fit them was a clear indication to Inej that this was a mercher’s house.  
Jesper looked out of place to say the least, with his bright ruffled suit and large, golden wings forever clashing with everything except maybe an exploded paint factory. “Hello there Inej, long time no see.” he smiled lazily, but she could see that something was wrong by the way his broad shoulders were bunched up. An even worse sign was that he had taken off his signature hat in favor of clutching it close to his chest.  
“Is your little Wylan here?” Inej enjoyed calling Wylan that, even though he was probably a teenager at this point.  
“Sadly, I tried to get him not to go into the room, but apparently the the lucky angel thing only works when I’m preventing him from harm, not stupidity.” Jesper gestured towards a little wooden door in one of the room’s corners. Small and unobtrusive enough to be a servants door. “Watch out,” Jesper warned as Inej strayed closer to the door “It’s not pretty.”  
“Maybe you should come with me Jesper, I know Wylan can’t see you, but I hear that it’ll help him if you’re in the room as well.” She reached up to put a hand on Jesper’s shoulder. Jesper sighed and nodded, he was pretty new to this whole guardian angel thing and still had the bad habit of abandoning Wylan when the going got tough. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the boy, but rather that he hated to be in a situation where he couldn’t help protect him and had to sit by and watch. He had cared for Wylan, helping him out of trouble since the guy was a baby. That was what lucky angels were supposed to do anyway, take bad situations and turn them into good ones. Wylan’s situation was a tough one however, and Jesper had taken many trips to complain to her about how every time he helped it only made things worse.  
As they both walked through the wall Inej grimaced at the amount of blood on the tile floor beneath them. The dark paneled walls seemed to be mostly unblemished, but based on the amount of blood that covered the white tiles, whoever was bleeding was going to die soon.  
“-Have anyone we can send her home to, or at least tell that she’s hurt?” Was the end of Wylan’s sentence that she caught as the walked in. He was clutching a red rag against the head of a girl who looked to be a maid and was half slumped against a wooden chair.  
“No master Wylan,” replied a middle-aged woman whose hands were also trying to clutch rags to the girl’s head. “Hilda’s family all died from the Queen’s lady plague. she lives in boarding house a few miles from here, but I don’t think they’d let her back there in this condition.” Inej realized that the rags weren’t red, but rather so blood soaked that they appear to be dyed.  
“Saints above” Inej whispered “What happened?” it wasn’t like she had really needed to whisper, no one could have seen either of them, but something about the situation necessitated a cautious and nervous silence.  
“I’m not sure exactly. I think one of Van Eyck’s pals at the party must have hit her and she fell back onto the corner of a table.” Jesper glared at the back of Wylan’s head in an obvious attempt to not look at the rest of the scene. “The whole thing started about ten minutes ago when she came here clutching her head and bleeding. Van Eyck refused to call a doctor because he thinks it’ll tarnish his reputation. Mrs. Baars called Wylan in because she’s seen him save dogs before, but this is totally different.” Jesper’s hat ripped a little at the seams as he clutched it harder “He’s so scared, he shouldn’t have to see this. He’s gonna want to discuss the treatment of staff with his father, and if that happens both he and I know that bastard is gonna kick the shit out Wylan and then cover up this girl’s death.” Inej sighed, she knew that she can’t be blamed for this girl’s death, but she somehow felt responsible for what was about to happen.  
“P-p-please….” moaned Hilda, and let out a pained gurgle that splattered a drop of blood onto Wylan’s horrified face. It broke Inej’s train of thought to bring her back to the situation. She may not have been able to save her from death, but Inej could numb this girl’s pain.  
“I’m coming, don’t worry, It will be fine.” she shuffled closer to Hilda, leaning over her and making sure that she could be seen.  
Hilda’s face washed into an ecstatic smile “Reaper woman holds you near.” she whispered.  
“You’ll be fine.” assured Wylan “We called the doctor, He’ll be here soon and you’ll be fine.” His blue eyes were opened wide with anxiety. Hilda didn’t hear him however, or at least doesn’t acknowledge it if she did.  
“Don’t move!” he yelped as Hilda tried to lift her head to meet Inej halfway. Inej softly placed her hands on both of Hilda’s cheeks and kissed her on the forehead. Hilda relaxed and slumped back at once, sending another spurt of blood that made Wylan grimace.  
“May your next life never leave you at the mercy of powerful men.” Inej whispered, hovering over the other girl’s face. Hilda closed her eyes and sighed. Wylan tried to shout something about not falling asleep with head trauma, but Hilda did not open her eyes again. 

 

Jesper sighed and ran a hand across his face. He put his slightly crumpled hat back onto his head, and sighed a little harder.  
Inej slapped her face twice with her hands so she wouldn’t lose her detachment. She didn’t hate her job, but she hated having to see that violence to young girls that had been like her, just trying to survive in a violent world.  
Mrs. Baars sighed deeply and let a few silent tears fall. She wiped them away however, and put a hand on Wylan’s hunched shoulder, disregarding the blood on her hands. When Wylan started to cry he did not do it silently, his whole face contorted and huge wracking sobs erupted from his tiny hunched frame. “I can’t believe this.” muttered Wylan “This is it, he can’t keep letting all his rich friends do whatever they want when they come over.”  
“There’s been times where someone’s gotten scuffed up, but this is the first time someone has died.” divulged Jesper.  
Wylan quickly rose and looked towards the door on the other side of the room. “I’m going to talk to him.” even though he was speaking through tears he managed to look like a formidable fighter, digging his hands into his palms and standing strong.  
“Do not do that.” replied both Mrs. Baars and Jesper at the same time, but only one was actually heard by Wylan.  
“He’s entertaining guests, please stay here and help me carry Hilda out.” sighed Mrs. Baars “You can talk to him later, after the party.” she put a tentative, blood-stained hand on Wylan’s arm.  
For a second it looked as though he would brush her off and storm out the door, but he stood in indecision. With another harsh sob he crumpled onto the tiled floor and put his head in his bloody hands.  
“You’re work is done here, if you want to go you can.” Jesper brushed elbows with Inej and sent down a wide smile that she reciprocated with a watery one. They had talked about their pasts with each other, Jesper knew not to hug her when she was feeling melancholy or scared, and she knew not to discuss gambling or grisha with him.  
“I’m going to go.” Inej nodded “Hopefully I’ll see you soon Jesper. I wish you the best of luck.” they both smiled at the pun. Inej quickly nodded and ran out of the room before she could start crying in front of Jesper. 

 

It was only a few minutes before she had jumped and flew all the way the church of Barter. She liked the place for its weird architecture and lack of people on the roof. Lots of wrought iron arches, painstakingly carved buttresses, and little gargoyles. Lots of nooks and crannies for her, a whole lot of pigeons, and the occasional confused pelican to hang out and think about their lives.  
It was in one of those supposed private crannies that she saw Kaz Brekker sleeping. He was tucked away, and she almost didn’t spot him at first. He was folded into a cubby that was a little too small for him, his body compressed like an angry accordion. She silently walked towards him, balancing along the curve of a buttress. “Hey, wake up.” she whispered, making sure not to startle him.  
“I’m not sleeping.” Kaz responded without opening his eyes as she got closer.  
Inej hopped up onto the ledge in which his cubby was a part of. She sat in the cubby next to his and leaned over.  
“What are you doing then?” she whispered  
“I’m supposed to be doing a stakeout, why are you whispering?” Kaz whispered back  
“I dunno, why are you whispering?”  
“Because you are Reaper.”  
Inej sat back in her uncomfortable seat. There was a little aesthetic hole where she could see Kaz, still sitting with his eyes closed. “This world is awful. Everything is horrible and sad.” was all she said.  
“You’re preaching to the quior, I’m the one who has to live in it.” Was his response.  
Inej couldn’t think us anything good to say to that. She had the realization that he was probably one of the people of the world that made a lot of other people’s lives awful, she didn’t really want to think about that though.  
They both didn’t talk for a while, Inej just watched the stars, or at least the lack of stars. Within the last decade or so the city has installed better street lamps, and payed the lighters better wages. The plus side was that less violent crime happened, but Inej would be lying if she said that she didn’t miss the stars in all of this light pollution. 

 

“Do you ever feel remorse when you hurt or kill people?” Inej fiddled with a bit of black fabric on her cape.  
Kaz still didn’t open his eyes. “Why do you want to know?”  
“Just thinking, just thinking, that’s all.”  
“I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone.”  
She sighed and gestured widely with her hands “Who else am I gonna tell Brekker? The dead?”  
“You may mock me, but I have a heartless bastard reputation to maintain.” Kaz opened his eyes and sat up a bit straighter.  
“It’s a good thing I won’t tell anyone then.” She sat up as well and looked at Kaz through the hole in the stone. “Even if I knew people besides you, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”  
Kaz shifted and winced as he tried to stretch and instead scraped against the stone. “Yeah, I’ve felt bad once or twice. I don’t want to talk about it though” he tried to admit with a forced informality. Inej sighed again and continued to pick at the edge of her cape.  
A mottled gray pigeon landed a few feet away from Kaz. He regarded it with a look of disapproval. “I don’t like pigeons. If you compare people to them too many times its starts to mess with how you see them.” he told Inej. Kaz pulled out a bag of crackers from one of the pockets of his coat and began to eat them in front of the bird. He leaned out of his alcove and wordlessly offered one to Inej.  
“I was a child slave for the final five years of my mortal life.”  
“I was asking if you wanted a cookie, not for your life story.” Kaz said, a little confused. “I mean you can tell me that sort of thing if you want, but-”  
“I don’t really want a cookie, those don’t look like cookies anyway.”  
“Okay, suit yourself.” Kaz retracted the hand with the cracker in it. “It’s a holy day or a saint’s day for some Ravkahan religious group. I think these are called suffering cookies, or pain cookies?” he took another bite. “They’re not half bad though.”  
All three of them, Inej, Kaz, and the pigeon sat in an awkward silence on top of the church.  
“I didn’t mean to tell you that. I just had a really bad job to complete.” Inej put her head in her hands, not to cry, but to just breathe.  
Kaz nodded “How bad was it? I mean the job, not your life.”  
Inej let out a mirthless laugh from inside her hands. “It wasn’t fun I’ll tell you that. The merchers have always been horrible people. I got to see an old friend though.”  
“You can definitely say that.” he crunched on another cracker “My favorite jobs are the ones where I can screw over those bastards.”  
“This one beat up a girl, she fell back of a table or something and bled out.”  
“Was your friend another reaper? Was he there to help as well?”  
“I don’t think Jesper would last two minutes as a reaper. No, he was not there to help, he’s a guardian angel, he only helps one person at a time.”  
Kaz scratched his chin “Does everyone have a guardian angel?”  
“Not everyone, it’s pretty rare actually.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure of the details but there’s a whole bunch of steps a baby has to go through before it’s eligible to have a guardian angel.”  
“So a baby has to take a bunch of tests or something?”  
“No you idiot,” Inej rested her head on her arms “the baby has to have a certain amount of predestined hardships, like being born disabled in a family who can’t or won’t support them, being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, or having chronic bad luck.”  
“Chronic bad luck is actually a thing?” Kaz ate another cracker.  
“Yep.” Inej “I’m pretty sure Jesper had it when he was alive. You just fail a lot more than the average person, I think it’s classified as an hereditary curse.”  
Kaz sighed “I could name a few people I know like that.”  
“Chances are you don’t know as many as you think you do. It’s actually pretty rare. Some people are just clumsy and that’s all there is to it.” Inej sighed “I take back my statement, could you pass me a suffering cookie?”  
Kaz raised his eyebrows “You must have good luck, here’s the last one.” he passed the cracker to her and shook out the bag of crumbs over the edge. The pigeon jumped of its ledge and followed the crumbs to the roof below. “Good riddance.” mumbled Kaz.  
The cracker was dry and crumbly, and had a vaguely sweet taste, almost as if it had been baked next to sugar, but had none added to it.  
“What do you have against pigeons?” Inej asked, watching it fly down.  
“I already told you, they remind me too much of humans. They’re greedy and selfish, they’re just filth on the streets.” he said is disgust.  
“Oh, that’s rather dramatic for a couple of rock doves don’t you think?”  
Kaz chose not to respond.

 

“I’ve got to head off now.” said Inej after a while of silence.  
“Are you sure you’re okay to go back out?”  
Inej bristled, she knew that this was Kaz trying to be nice, but she didn’t want him to think of the reaper as weak. “I’m alright Brekker.” she gruffly responded. “I’m not a child, or some dame with a delicate constitution.”  
“I didn’t think you were.” Kaz shrugged. “You don’t have to be either to be sad.”  
“You’re being a bit of a hypocrite Mr. I never get any sleep and ignore my all of my emotions.” she sighed.  
Kaz just shrugged again, this time while frowning. “Good luck until I see you again.”  
“You as well.” Inej jumped off the ledge and let herself fall. After roughly a twenty foot drop, she landed on one of the lower rooves, and upset a whole bunch of pigeons pecking there. “Oh, sorry about that.” she said, and the pigeons regarded her with mild distaste. Being a wraith didn’t allow her to understand animals any more than she did as a human, but she got the feeling that animals were a bit more calm around her. When she wasn’t dropping down right next to them that is.  
Inej looked up one more time to see Kaz’s head disappear from the ledge above. It made her just a bit happier to see that he cared about her, at least a little bit.  
She jumped off the roof, and slowly made her way across the city to her next person. She had work to do and people to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catch me in the hallways of every library, reading about the history of working class women, and also European architecture. Those mfs went OFF with those churches in the Renaissance.


	7. seventh (smoke and running)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof! Sorry for the wait, writing is hard. I am so small and have very little braincells, so you can imagine the kind of stress I'm under...

Inej died when she was nineteen. She died on a wednesday. She died surrounded by flames and smoke and screaming people. She died when a lamp fire turned into a curtain fire which turned into a larger and larger fire and she was locked in her room and couldn’t get out. Between the screams she screamed out to the reaper man, she begged for peace and comfort. The reaper had come to her then, he had been a middle-aged man, one who reminded Inej of her father. He gave her the kind of hug that only a loving father can give, and kissed her on her charred forehead. She later learned that three other girls died in that fire. When she died though, she went hesitantly, she had still wanted to do things with her short life. The reaper, who had introduced himself as Gottlieb Kohl offered to trade places, he had the job for the past three hundred years before her, and realized that he wanted to pass on. Inej had shook his hand and her pain turned to passion, and her hurt turned into the dull ache of a job that had only just begun. 

 

Inej had just been people watching on the West Stave when she heard Kaz call to her. At first she thought that he was just calling for a person that he had killed again, they hadn’t talked in months, but then she felt the fear. She felt the fear in his heart clogging his throat as he sang for her help.  
She rushed across the roofs of Ketterdam, around chimneys, and over lightning rods, rushing towards his cries.  
She was about four blocks away when she saw the fire, at least the fire itself. The smoke could be seen on any side of the city, but Inej had originally just passed it off as the usual industrial smoke that clung to the city like a lonely child. It was not industrial smoke, it was fire smoke, from a burning building smoke, from a burning building Kaz was in. 

 

Fourth floor window, third from the right was where she climbed in. There wasn’t anyone that she could see as she first walked through the room, but that really didn’t mean anything. It was two rooms down and on the right of a wide hallway that breathed the air of “respectable organization that is definitely not a front for some sort of trafficking or illegal practices” but also of smoke and fire. Inej couldn’t tell if the carpet and walls were black from soot, or just looked like that in general, but considering the progression of the fire, it was likely that if things weren’t black to begin with, they would soon be.

 

Kaz was sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood and broken glass, in the middle of an office of some sort. For a sick and frightening moment, Inej thought she had come to late and he was already dead. As she stepped into the room however, Kaz opened his eyes. Two others were on the ground in the puddle and a third slumped against a dark oak desk, all together forming a pretty grisly crime scene. He looked up at Inej as she approached, with glassy eyes that sharpened as he recognised her. “Hello Reaper,” he began, making an attempt to push himself up on his hands. “It’s crazy seeing you here, did you come here for a reason?”  
“Not the time for jokes, what happened?” Inej crouched in front of him, hands on her knees.  
“Well it’s an interesting story.”  
“Would you care to tell me then Brekker?”  
Kaz let out two rattling coughs and groaned “It was gaining information for a personal project,” another cough “A conversation went a little wrong, that’s all.” Kaz slowly shifted onto his back and flopped down again. His whole suit seemed to be covered in blood, she couldn’t tell where he had been hurt.  
Inej’s heart did a horrible flip flop feeling in her chest at seeing him on the ground. Some small part of her couldn’t help but see the little boy floating in the ocean, so filled with anger and life. Kaz just looked limp and tired now, he coughed. His eyes squinted just a bit as he looked up at the ceiling, Inej followed his gaze and saw the clouds of smoke billowing above them, the fire hadn’t reached the room, but the smoke certainly had.  
“I know that the first time we met, I didn’t wan-” a cough “didn’t want any help, but could I cash in on that kiss now?” Kaz didn’t get up from the floor, and Inej didn’t look down from the ceiling. She felt bad for blushing at a time like this but she couldn’t help herself.  
“Where are you hurt?” was all she could manage, still not looking at him. Still not moving.  
“Uh well,” he let out another dry cough “My lungs hurt, and so does my head.” Kaz propped himself up on his elbows and with one hand gestured to his leg “McGallicher also landed a good cut on my leg. I don’t know much about doctoring things, but I can’t feel it very well.”  
“And that’s it?”  
Kaz nodded and coughed again.  
Inej sighed “Okay good. We’re gonna get you out of here then.”  
“What?”  
“You heard me Brekker, you’re not gonna die, we’re getting you out of here.”  
“Who is we Inej?”  
“You and me, that’s who.” Inej grumbled. She reached out and ripped off a strip from the end of her cape. Once she had found the deep slash in his upper leg she found strip was just the right size as she tied it. He flinched and tried to gasp, coughing instead. “What’s wrong?”  
“Touch,” he gasped “gentle please.”  
“Oh, sorry.” Inej was momentarily stunned by his use of please “I’ll be more careful, but we’re going to have to touch a bit.”  
“As little as possible.” Kaz coughed.  
“Okay, okay.” Inej finished tying the fabric into a makeshift bandage. She unclipped her cape and passed it over to Kaz “Put this over your mouth, we’re going to be walking through smoke.”

 

By the time they had gotten out of the building Inej was half panicked and anxious to get out. She didn’t have to worry about dying of smoke inhalation or burns, but Kaz certainly did. The pair had stumbled down the hallway and shambled down the staircase, with multiple stops and almost falls. Kaz looked like how she imagined he felt, half dead and sick. With a stroke of luck they had mostly avoided the burning fire parts of the building, but the smoke had been thick and noxious.  
As they burst through the doors, they were greeted by a whole crowd of onlookers who were watching the fire. Inej knew that most citizens of Ketterdam wouldn’t bother sticking their necks out to save a bunch of bastard criminals from a fire, and she applauded them for that. Inej probably wouldn’t have bothered to run into a burning building for a criminal had he not been this very specific criminal. The night air was cold and humid, the opposite of the hellish, dry building.  
The people all looked on in expressions of mild distaste and shock, but the pair passed through the crowd unimpeded. She scanned the street and shifted to allow Kaz to put more weight on her. The more they had walked, the more Kaz had leaned on her. They had started out with barely holding hands to move, and at this point Kaz was using her as a crutch, his long and skinny body half walking, half carried by her.  
“Where is the closest hospital? Do you know?” she muttered, a mostly rhetorical question.  
“Can’t go to the hospital, they’ll send someone to kill me.” and he wriggled in a panic, almost breaking free of her grasp. For a second Inej panicked, with his grip and the vague smell of the fire behind her. She pushed down a wave of nausea and discomfort, forcing herself to keep holding him upright.  
“I can’t fix those wounds Brekker, you’re going to need actual medical attention.”  
“Doesn’t matter, just bring me to the slat, I’ll be fine.” he coughed “We got a Healer, she should be working tonight.”  
Inej groaned in agitation and pulled him up in her arms. He let out a surprised squeak and she had to quickly maneuver around until they were both comfortable. “I’m going to have to carry you if we’re gonna get there in time.”  
Kaz just half relaxed in resignation. “I just can’t believe you can pick me up.”  
“Immortal and all powerful, remember?” she laughed as she slowly started running in the destination of the Slat.

 

“Inej I’m sorry.” Kaz muttered as Inej rounded a street corner in as fast as she could, or at least as fast as she could without jostling around Kaz too much.  
“What did you say?” She looked down, he wasn’t looking at her.  
“I wanted to figure out more about you, so I went to McGallicher, he runs almost half of the human-” a cough and a pause “I just wanted to see if he had any information.”  
Inej winced, had that building been a trading house? Why were there so few people in it then? She should have looked to see if anyone else was there.  
As if sensing her question, Kaz continued “That building wasn’t the trading house, it was just a place they kept archives of people and sales and such. I came alone because I didn’t want any of my subordinates to suspect anything.” he groaned and caught his breath as Inej passed through a thin alleyway “I’m sorry Inej but I couldn’t find anything at all. Then he made some comment about young girls and the-” a cough “that’s when the talking took a turn for the worse.”  
She didn’t respond to him.  
“I killed him though, I suppose that’s a pretty good thing to do. Not a very evil thing at least” he added.  
“Kaz, you’re not evil.” Inej sighed. She rounded another corner and reached the edge of the barrel. “Kaz if you make it through this I’ll tell you about who I am and who I was.”  
Kaz shifted a bit “You don’t have to Inej.” he let out another cough.  
“I want to though. I promise I will.”

 

She screeched to a halt in a backyard, or rather a square of dirt with deflated kickball and a couple broken bottles inside. Barely any light from the streets or windows reached the little square. Sounds came from all sides, of conversations, dogs barking, babies crying, music playing, but it was silent where she stood.  
“Kaz, are you still alive?”  
“Yes Inej, I can’t very well die now that I have a very interesting reason to stay alive for the next few days at least.”  
“Kaz,” and shuffled her feet “Kaz, I would like to kiss you. May I kiss you?”  
She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but felt him shudder just a little bit.  
“If you don’t mind kissing a very inexperienced man, then I think that would be a nice thing to do.”  
Inej made sure to give him space to move away if he wanted. Both their lips were very dry, of course, they had been in a fire. His weren’t dry in a bad way though, she knew that. He moved against her face softly, unsure of himself as she held him aloft. Inej could see the dark outline of his hand hovering inches away from his face. She felt the press of his tongue on the outside of her lips, and as if on a reflex, her head shot back.  
“Okay, that’s enough for now.” she muttered.  
Kaz mumbled something she couldn’t hear, or rather chose not to hear. Inej shifted him into a more comfortable carrying position, and started moving again. 

 

“This is gonna mess up my reputation.” sighed Kaz.  
All of a sudden Inej remembered that she hadn’t been visible to mortals for this entire sprint through the city. “Oh shit.” she muttered  
“Oh, I didn’t know you were allowed to curse.”  
“This isn’t going to mess up your reputation Dirtyhands. I haven’t been visible to mortals this entire time, what people saw was you, floating five and a half feet above the ground, moving at fifteen kilometers per hour!” She wanted to smack her forehead, but couldn’t because her hands were full of bleeding gangster. “Saint Alina is going to murder me.”  
“Oh,” Kaz muttered “Then turn visible now I guess.” he paused “I suppose this might add another weird rumor to my supernatural persona.”  
“I’m glad you’re happy.” Muttered Inej before jumping twice while in mid sprint. The force of jumping while running almost sent the pair flying, but she righted herself at the last second.  
Kaz said “Gentle?” accusingly in response and winced.  
Inej chose not to respond to him. 

 

The guard sitting at the doorway to the Slat probably had not expected to be dealing with a complete stranger carrying the bleeding body of their boss. He was a big guy, with a body that bulged with muscles and an eternally distant expression. His eyes did focus as Inej stopped in front of the door. The cigarette dropped from in between his lips and he let out a rather loud “Oh Fucking ‘ell.” as he rose in his tiny chair.  
“She didn’t do this, Mac.” wheezed Kaz “I’ll be fine if your ass doesn’t get in the way.”  
As Mac made a surprisingly quick effort to make sure his ass wasn’t in the way, Inej stepped through the door and into the Slat.  
This wasn’t her first time stepping into the Slat, not even her second or third. Before the Slat was the home base of the dregs it was an abandoned apartment building, before that a non-abandoned apartment building, and Inej had certainly done many visits, even if it had been a long time ago. They had obviously changed the wallpaper and also added a better lamp to light the front room since she’d last visited. The better lamps shone light on the faces of at least eight or nine teens and adults, all sitting around tables or standing, staring in confusion and shock at Inej and Kaz.  
“Oh Saints!” Cried a tall girl with an angular face and long black hair. She had been part of the group playing some sort of card game at the largest of the tables, but slammed her cards down and stood up, shouting “Is that Dirtyhands?”  
Inej nodded and the girl rushed around the side of table and towards Inej. She moved in a awkward and glangly sense like a newborn foal or someone walking on ice. If it hadn’t been a serious situation Inej might have smiled.  
“It’s time you and your brother earn your damn keep Sikora.” wheezed Kaz. It almost marveled Inej that Kaz could be bleeding out and be the color of ash but still sound like he was in complete control of any situation.  
“Yes Sir!” the girl blurted. “Someone go get Merceli, and tell him to bring the painkillers.” Inej assumed that Sikora must have been the hired Healer, though she didn’t know Marceli.  
The girl went to take Kaz from her arms and Kaz tensed. “The Wraith can carry me.” he grumbled “Just lead her to the medical room before I die and come back as a ghost to haunt you all.” he sounded mostly sarcastic, but something about his tone made it hard to tell. Inej briskly walked through through the room, following Sikora. People’s eyes watched her and it took a lot of her willpower not to ask them what they were looking at. She knew what they were looking at, it was the bleeding body of their boss and the mysterious person who carried him.  
“It probably would have been less of a fuss if I had taken you in through a back entrance.” Inej whispered to Kaz as they left the main room for a dingy and silent hallway  
“I would sooner be dead than not use the front door of my own establishment.” was his reply. Inej sighed and shook her head.  
Inej’s first though as she stepped into the aforementioned “medical room” was that it probably also doubled as a torture room. The walls were padded with thick hay covered in cloth, and as well as a clean ceramic slab there was also a less clean rack against one wall with thick leather straps around it. Sikora ushered her in and closed the door behind them.  
Inej layed Kaz down on the ceramic tiled bed and stepped back. She made sure to keep the bloodstains on her shirt and skirt, so she wouldn’t accidentally end up confusing someone.  
Inej let herself take a few steps back as Sikora came in closer to inspect Kaz. “What happened?” she started to prod Kaz’s leg gently  
“Knife wound, smoke inhalation.” Responded Inej as she opened the door of the room. “Kaz, I’m going to leave, I have other jobs.” she didn’t, but also didn’t want to spend more time in the room.  
Sikora whirled around. “You needn’t worry miss, I swear on my honor, as the Corporalki Healer Bodil Sikora that I will not allow this man to die.” She gave half of a jerky Ravkahan salute, and then abruptly stopped and cringed at herself.  
“You should be swearing that sort of crap to me not her.” Kaz coughed “You have to stay here, Wraith.”  
“No.” Inej bristled “I don’t have to do anything Kaz.”  
“You don’t, but you promised me a story.”  
The whole room was silent. “I did, didn’t I?”  
Sikora was visibly sweating with nervousness as she grabbed gauze from a small box in the corner. Kaz didn’t move and neither did Inej.  
Then, unexpectedly, the door burst open all the way, pushing Inej back. In the doorway was a boy who resembled the healer, probably the older brother, with the same angular features and black hair except he had a little more mass than his sister. In one hand he grasped a mysterious vial and in the other was a green handkerchief “Alright scrub I’m here! I heard that Kaz Brekker apparently came in with his mysterious girlfriend and now is dead, which sounds un-fucking-likely if you ask-” and upon seeing the scene in front of him, his sister, his boss, his boss’s mysterious girlfriend, he stopped and spend a few silent seconds most likely internally accepting his imminent death.  
Inej took the distraction as her chance to leave. She slipped past the taller boy and didn’t stop when she heard her name being called from the room. 

 

The whole front room watched her as she stormed out of the front door. More people had gathered and all their quizzical eyes followed her as Inej cursed herself for being so stupid. People would talk, rumors would spread. How long would it take for other wraiths, reapers, guardians, and gods to find out about her little slip up? How long would it take for a Saint to pay her a visit and ask about her little mysterious mortal boyfriend?  
“What’s the situation with Brekker?” asked a member of the crowd.  
Inej snapped, “He’s a fool, and I hate him!” before pushing past people and doors to escape out into the night.

 

She sped up and ran out of the barrel as fast as she could, fading away from mortal eyes. Somewhere along her run to the church of Barter she started to think. She cursed herself and her heart. Her stupid head, her stupid heart, her stupid tears, and the stupid man that she probably in love with.  
One floor off the ground on the exterior facade of the church she cursed Kaz and how he’d never become evil. It would have been so much easier if he was evil. If he traded human lives and murdered anyone and everyone. If he’d been mean to her. If he’d died so long ago.  
By the third floor she cursed herself. One human had more than one conversation with her and she saved them from their fate. One simple, or very complicated, mortal had bought her waffles and wanted to know how she died, and all of a sudden she was a smitten thirteen year old girl.  
By the fourth floor she cursed fate and time. She didn’t want to keep existing how she was. Only having conversations every four years when she ran into a friend because some mortal had died. She couldn’t curse her friends or the saints, it wasn’t their fault. It was her fault.  
In the hands of Barter she didn’t think about anything but fire. Fire and Kaz and what a fool she was for such a foolish man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marceli and Bodil Sikora are two Corporalki healers. They both like chocolate, card games, and not killing their patients. Bodil is single, and Marceli has a gal he's betrothed to back in Ravkah. They both work for the Dregs because they're idiots and no one wanted to hire them.


	8. eighth (pastries and conversations)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Back! Sorry it took so long! writing is hard and so is school!

Southern Ravkah was Inej’s favorite place to be in the spring months. After the first rains soaked the ground, millions and millions of flowers sprang forth and made the most out of the warm seasons. Inej would collect them in big bouquets to give to her friends, hands stained with the oranges and blues of wild Jurda and cornflower blossoms. The flowers were used for dyes, she knew that. sometimes she would watch the dyes being made by Ravkan peasant women, in large cauldrons and vats. Most of the villages didn’t trust the Suli, but some did. Inej was smart, she knew which towns to avoid for fear of being chased out with sticks and stones. She also knew which towns and which women would let her watch the dye making process, and which ones would let her help stirring the large oars that mixed the vats of dye. When Inej helped with making dye her whole arms would be stained blue, and sometimes her face would be too. The fumes as well as the mixture dyed things blue. White shirts became sky blue or yellow, red skirts became purple or orange, Inej’s skin looked silvery blue or sometimes vibrantly orange. Her mother would be cross with her at ruining her good clothes, but the Ravkan working women would share their lunches with Inej and they would all tell jokes together while staining everything blue and orange.

 

She didn’t want to talk to Kaz after she had saved him. Something about the act of preventing his death and carrying him halfway across Ketterdam, not to mention kissing him in some dusty backyard changed their relationship from a tentative friendship to something entirely different. She knew she would have to face him though, the city was only so big and they had to run into each other eventually. They had always run into each other in the past, and she knew they would again.

 

Eventually she plucked up her courage, after a week or so of moping and working, and went to find Matthias. More like Nina and Matthias, the two always seemed to hang out together anyway, despite not being even remotely connected in their duties. She needed to see them both, Matthias was prone to giving emotionless, truthful advice, and Nina always said that it was best to “follow your heart, and your stomach!” so the two ended up balancing each other out.   
It brought to mid images of the stories that Inej’s father used to tell her, the ones where vice and virtue personified themselves to the main characters and either advised them, or led them astray. Nina and Matthias were usually more prone to leading each other astray, but in a way that Inej deemed was probably better for the both of them. 

The pair were sitting at a little restaurant when Inej found them. One of the fancy Mercher cafes that sold pastries that looked too pretty to eat and fine coffee as dark as a moonless night. Nina was eating a beautifully sculpted danish with all the grace of a dancer and the ferocity of a starved wolf, and Matthias was trying to look above it all as he sipped his coffee, looking like the minor god he was. They both smiled a Inej approached their table, one with an enthusiastic wave, and the other with a simple nod.  
“So, fair Reaper Man,” Said Nina while she licked some jam off her fingers “what brings you to seek the counsel of the Reaper of Heartrenders and the patron God of traitorous lovers?” She swooped her hand that wasn’t holding the danish in a wide arc, and Matthias swerved his head out of the way of its path.   
“You’re in a good mood.” Commented Inej  
“Mortality rates have been down recently.” supplied Matthias, and he nodded again. “She gets to spend more of her time bothering me and walking about the city instead of doing her usual job.”   
Nina shrugged, “What can I say? The overall treatment of Grisha, especially Heartrenders has greatly improved. Plus-” she swung her danish free arm in another graceful arc, narrowly missing Matthias’s head “-I only have to help them out if they sing my song, and that’s even less of them.”   
“Oh my darling terminarch the last one of your kind. Be generous to me your grace and give me peace of mind. I to am a terminarch, but I cannot complain. Heartrenders live Heartrenders die, and both of them have pain.” Matthias silently sing-songed. He didn’t have a song that summoned him, he wasn’t technically a Reaper, he just watched over those who had abandoned their countries in times of conflict to be the the one, or more than one, that they romantically loved. He wasn’t technically a god, his job was similar to the guardian angels except that he managed thousands of people occasionally instead one all the time.   
“Oh yes yes, we all know it.” sighed Nina. She motioned for Inej to sit down at their table “Now I’m sure that whatever reason your here is much more interesting that the mortality rate of oppressed minorities.” She grumbled a bit as Matthias leaned over and licked his thumb so that he could smudge a stripe of jam off of her face.  
Inej sighed “I saved a mortal from dying.”  
The pair stopped mid action, with Matthias’ thumb hovering an inch away from Nina’s dirty cheek and Nina with a playful hand on his chest. The pair of them stared at Inej dumbfounded.   
“You did what?” asked Nina.  
Inej tried to backtrack and explain “Look, it’s become rather complicated. Kaz and I have been meeti-”  
“A first name!” cried Nina.  
“It’s just that there was a mix-up and he didn’t die the first time he called me and we kept meeting by accident and I saved him from a burning house and I kissed him and-”  
“Kissed him!” cried Nina and Matthias at the same time. Nina looked to be excited enough to burst and Matthias looked like he was an aging Fierdian grandmother that had just heard one of her grandchildren curse. Inej could never figure out what strange force influenced their mutual love life considering their respective intense desire and intense revulsion at all displays of affection.   
“Oh my goodness, tell us more!” Nina smacked her palms on the little cafe table, rattling the plates and cups.  
Inej was about to begin before a waiter appeared at their table in the silent and unobtrusive way that only servants of decadent establishments can. “Can I get you anything more to eat?” They asked.  
“Oh, oh, I’ll take another one of those little cheesecake things that I had before.”  
“We’ll take two actually.” Matthias cut in.  
“Aw babe, thanks,” Nina put a hand to her chest “You’re so sweet.” She pulled in Matthias’ head for a kiss.  
“Do you want anything to eat, Inej?” He said as Nina kissed him on the cheek, leaving a vibrantly red lipstick mark.   
“No, no, I’m alright.” she shook her head. She was too nervous to eat anyway  
“You sure? Matthias is paying for all of this anyway.”  
“I’m quite sure.” she shook her head again.  
The waiter left with a bow and the collective attention shifted back to Inej. They didn’t say anything, but Inej took a deep breath and began.

 

She explained to them what she could and in many stops and starts. Nina had the bad habit of interrupting with questions or affirmatives, to which Matthias would chastise her, and that would take even longer than the question or comment had. They would then both sidetrack the conversation to bicker for a few seconds about whether or not it was alright to interrupt a story that someone was telling. Inej had to pull them back a few times with a quiet “do you still want to hear what happened?” and they would quiet down for a few more seconds while she continued.  
Inej knew that she was a bit of a distant friend to the couple, she liked to work rather that laze around like Nina or sit broodingly like Matthias. However they always seemed to enjoy her company whenever she could give it. Not making her feel guilty for when she didn’t visit, but simply making the most of when she did. 

 

The three members of the conversation paused for a few seconds after Inej finished. None of them moved, lost in thought.   
Matthias was the first to react, lifting his coffee cup delicately to his lips and taking a sip. He wouldn’t make eye contact with her and gently placed the cup back down on the table, “Okay, I understand that y-” he began.  
Nina cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “You better not open your mouth to say something lame Matthias Helvar!” She smacked a palm on the table “You’ve got a rather large stick up your ass, darling, and if you discourage Inej I will-”  
“I wasn’t going to be a stick in the ass!”  
“Oh really? You weren’t? What were you going to say then? Something kind and loving about how divine creatures must be a symbol of chastity and restraint?”  
Inej cut in “The expression is stick in the mud, not stick in the ass.” She mostly corrected his slang mistakes on habit. Even immortal gods of concepts had trouble speaking languages they’d never spoken while alive.  
“There will be no sticks going anywhere!” bellowed Matthias “I’m glad you’ve found someone who you appreciate enough to consider a romantic relationship with!” The cafe’s background noise faded out and all the other customers of the cafe stared at the trio.   
“We should not shout any more.” whispered Nina with a nod of her head.  
Inej responded by mirroring the nod, and Matthias responded by crossing his arms and mumbling a vague agreement.   
“Now,” sighed Inej “I know that I’ll have to face him eventually, so I came to you for advice.” she folded her hands into her lap.   
“You’re going about it all wrong.” announced Nina with a swish of her wrist. “You don’t think of it like ‘facing him’, you guys aren’t enemies, you don’t have to face off for a battle of fisticuffs.” she paused for a second and quirked an eyebrow at Inej “you’re not going to fight him right?”   
Inej shook her head.  
“Well then don’t think about it like facing Inej, you both are on the same side of this situation. From what you’ve told me it seems like he likes spending time with you too, so there’s no need to think you’re at odds.”  
Matthias nodded sagely in agreement.  
Inej tapped her chin and looked up “So I should just rip the bandage off?”  
“It’s not ripping off a bandage!” cried Nina, throwing her hands up into the air “It shouldn’t have to be! Wait until you feel comfortable and then go talk to him!”  
“If I wait until I’m comfortable telling him, then it’s going to be at least two hundred more years.”   
The three members of the conversation all looked down at the table in solidarity. Nina made a grimace that seemed to say ‘yeah I suppose so’, and Matthias nodded again.  
Matthias asked “Are you afraid of what will happen if he listens to your story?”   
“Perhaps.” groaned Inej. slouching in her chair, she continued “I just suppose he might no longer want to talk to me, or he’d treat me differently.”   
Nina shrugged “There’s always the chance he may, but unless you talk to him, you’ll never know, will you?”  
Inej was about to respond, when all of a sudden Matthias’ face froze in a look of shock. “Oh no.” he muttered “No, no, no.”  
“What’s wrong babe?” Nina placed a hand on his shoulder. He placed a hand over hers and didn’t tear his eyes away from the middle distance.  
Out of the side of his mouth he whispered. “Don’t look now, but I think we’ve got company.”   
Inej followed his eyes and jumped with shock. Standing in the doorway to the cafe was Saint Alina, and her piercing eyes were scanning the cafe, and stopping on Inej.

 

Inej didn’t talk often with any of the saints, and she considered that to be a good thing. They didn’t really get involved with the day to day jobs of other spirits, they mostly stayed out of the way and did whatever they did.   
Inej was a good wraith, she did her job, so naturally she didn’t see the saints that often. However, the lack of experience in dealing with the quasi gods didn’t add to her advantage as Alina approached the table with a single minded purpose.   
Flowing with an unfelt breeze, her long white hair and flowing robes rustled around her and caught the light as though they were made of crystals. Most common spirits and gods wore relatively plain clothes when they had to, and more or less followed the fashions of what mortal wore. There were some exceptions of course, Matthias always wore big fur hunting coats no matter the century or weather, and Inej enjoyed wearing the Suli fashion that’d been popular when she was alive, not whatever they wore more recently. Alina however was sticking out like a very finely dressed sore thumb. She looked like one of the icons that were carved in Ravkahn churches, detailed headdresses and intricate patterns on her lavish robes that billowed like clouds in an unseen storm. Her whole body softly glowed, even in the bright light of the cafe. She looked like she either belonged at a party or in a museum.   
“Greetings.” was all Alina said as she stopped in front of the table. There was a extra seat she could have taken, but she stood in waiting.   
Inej and Matthias silently whispered and nodded out hellos trying not to be conspicuous, but Nina, who only obsessed with formality when the saints were involved stood up in her seat and bowed at the waist “Greetings to you as well Santka Alina.” They already had the attention of everyone in the cafe, but now the entire place was silent.  
“I would like to talk with Ms. Ghafa on private subjects.” Alina explained, and slowly swiveled her face towards Inej. It was like the opposite of staring at the sun, it was like being stared at by the sun. “May I talk to you for a minute or so Inej?”   
Inej chose to nod dumbly in response. She rose from her chair and turned one last ‘wish me luck glance’ to her friends as she left the cafe with Saint Alina.

 

The weather was gorgeous, that’s how it was during late summer in Ketterdam. Sunny days were more common, and the smog that clung to the city was able to be burned away by clear winds and harsh sun. Despite her love of the dramatic fog, Inej really did enjoy when it was sunny outdoors. Pigeons softly cooed and strutted around as Inej and Alina meandered down the street at the pace of those who are supposed to be having a conversation but can’t do it.   
Alina sighed before she finally spoke “You know I had a love like that once too.” She was staring off into the distance when Inej spared her a quick glance.  
Maybe it was a good idea for Inej to play dumb, not reveal she’d done anything wrong at all, or ever. “What do you mean?”   
“He and I both had to go through a lot of hardships to be together.”  
In the awkward silence, the pair kept walking. Now that she could look at her clearly, Inej figured that Alina was probably beautiful, but not in the way that most beautiful people usually were. Her face itself was rather plain and still bared the scars of battle and teenage acne. Her hair wasn’t especially voluminous or shiny and she didn’t seem to wear makeup or attend to her hair. Somehow though, Alina was gorgeous. It was probably the way she stood, she wasn’t much taller than Inej, but she stood and walked as though she was facing an army. She was beautiful in the way that mountains or predatory cats were beautiful, scraggly and weathered. Fine and delicate in some ways, but mostly strong and powerful.   
Alina stopped in the middle of the street, and Inej stopped a foot or so in front of her. Alina looked as though she was fretting over what to say next. She made a motion to grab at Inej’s hands, but stopped at the last minute and grabbed her own dress. “What I’m saying Inej is, go be happy. I can’t say that I’m too thrilled that you’ve gone and prevented his death at least once,” she paused “but you work very hard, and you deserve a little bit of life in your existence.” she paused again, as if thinking about what to say. People on the street bustled past of both sides. “Everyone needs a little bit of love in this harsh world, be it a brave soldier boy who defies lords and monsters to be with you and could track you down across miles of wilderness to give you kisses between the bars of a jail cell, or…” and she paused, frowning a little bit “or a gangster I suppose.”   
They both were silent at the comparison. Inej coughed to try and clear the silence, but it didn’t really work.   
“What I’m saying,” Alina continued “is that you don’t have to worry about one of us coming in a breaking up your little visits. We’ve got more important things to do.”  
Inej could feel herself relax at the words. Alina visibly relaxed too, she shook out her shoulders and sighed.   
“Thank you very much for your kindness and compassion.” Inej knew she had to say thank you, but she also felt compelled to fill the silence.  
“No need to thank me,” Alina shook her head “I’m not good at these talks at all!” she let out a forced chuckle.   
They still stood still in the middle of the street. A few people seemed a bit miffed at them blocking the way, but no one bothered them, probably because they were supernatural spirits. The saint seemed to be looking for a way out, as she patted her skirt and looked back and forth across the street.  
“I’m sure that there’s a lot of things you have to do today.”  
“Yes, yes I do in fact! Loads and loads of fancy saintly duties.”   
“I’d hate to waste any more of your time.”  
Alina was already a few feet away and walking fast. “I’ll see you around then Ms Ghafa!” she gave a curt wave without looking behind her “Good luck with your gangster, have a good day, and all that stuff.”   
She almost laughed as she watched the other woman speed walk into the distance, how strange it was for a saint to be afraid of small talk.  
Inej walked off in the other direction, almost a spring in her step. Perhaps she’d head back to Nina and Matthias, tell them what happened. Perhaps she’d order a pastry and not worry about things for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if Alina is ooc, I literally have not read a single book with her in it, and all I did was basically read the wiki and b*llshit things. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
